The majority of churches today would honor Mass with the priest facing his parishioners across the alter. If the church would be built so that the priest honoring Mass always faces the east, it makes perfect sense why the deceased would also face east throughout the funeral service. And the rule is only available during the funeral Mass. The only thing that kind of regulates the funeral service is a reference in the Roman Ritual of 1950 (it’s not mandatory anymore) that recommended that the casket should be placed so that the feet of the body would always point toward the main altar. There are no strict regulations about the position of burial in the Catholic religion, and the direct burial is also taking place time to time. Read also: In Loving Memory Quotes: How to Express Your Love & Support Is there a rule about orientation in the Catholic religion? See if the headstones of the husbands are on the left as you're standing in front of them. Take a look to find out how many are facing east. Next time you go to a cemetery, you could take a look at the burials. In some cemeteries, the tradition hasn’t disappeared, and it's the most common for couples. The position isn’t ordinary, and it’s the same that couples have while they’re getting married. Typically, the husband is buried on the left, whereas the wife should be on the right, as you’re standing at their feet. One particular aspect refers to the position you're buried relates to one of the spouse. He also adds that it’s sure that not all cemeteries were built with the direction in mind. The is suggesting that some may have used west-east positioning of the graves in the city cemeteries. Therefore, nine times out of ten, it was a person’s take and not science deciding the grave direction centuries ago. It goes without saying that nobody should rely on the old surveying methods when we have accurate modern surveying systems. Many years ago, the "meets and bounds" was the survey system, and it was no good at all. The declination is the leading cause for the difference, with the magnetic north being different from the true north. Should you be curious enough to check the early land records, you would notice that there are many inadvertences between the legal descriptions and the real surveys. Little that they know that the position would change every single day of the year. It's beyond a doubt that they would use the sunrise for establishing east. Truth be told, people weren't accurate when choosing the placement of the grave, and it's not sure that they used the compass after burial either. The next option was the local church, but it was difficult to establish the actual east as many people would choose the local cemetery. Family farms would use the family ground for burial, and it was prevalent for the rural south, especially for the Cumberland and Appalachian regions. How familiar were the facing east burials?Īs the people moved westward toward the Indian lands, it became apparent that the need for gravesites would increase. People may have sensed that they are using the east, but the compass would have proved otherwise. The possible cause for the misalignment is that it was challenging to establish east only by the position of the sun on the eastern horizon at sunrise. For example, the oldest graves from Virginia are almost never aligned to true east. Even if the magnetic compass was available, not many people were using it per se. It's mostly because getting the right east was challenging to obtain. When the West-east burial placement was utilized, all graves couldn't align with the real east. Going early in the morning or late in the afternoon will let you observe the sun’s position, without even utilizing a compass. Should you be curious enough, you can always grab a compass and see it for yourself. It’s the main reason for which many churches put the altars facing east. It makes perfect sense that the Son of Man would arrive from the east. Lightning shows from the east, but it’s from the west that you can see it. Many scriptural talks about the resurrection and how Christ will come from the east. Some of the ancient religions (based on the sun) would bury the dead facing east so that they could face the "new day" and the "rising sun." Once again, Christ is considered to be the "Light of the World," which explains the eastward facing burials. It seems that in Christianity, the star comes from the east. One may think that it’s for practical reasons, but the east-facing placement has religious causes.
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